Blood Debts (The Temple Chronicles Book 2) (20 page)

“Your no-neck detective hung up on my alibi when he arrested me. Call her. Indiana Rippley.”

The man nodded, writing down the name. “Kosage also has video footage of you tossing the cuffs back at him in the interrogation room a few months back. Then you leave without being processed. He could make it stick. Tied to all the murders, it puts you in a funny spot. He just needed a little more mayhem from you to get a judge’s permission. Last night was it.” Wilson shrugged helplessly. I nodded, actually coming to appreciate that the guy was just doing his job.

“Fine. I’ll make sure you keep your job, but I predict that Kosage will be making balloon puppets for children’s birthday parties next week.” Kosage stood from the table angrily before storming from the room.

They processed me, and placed me in a concrete cell to wile away the rest of the day. I passed out instantly, despite fearing the Demons finding me while I slept. I literally couldn’t stay awake. I was lucky I hadn’t nodded off during the interrogation.

Sleep found me on the rickety bench, the equivalent of a mild coma to my exhausted body. I was smiling as I drifted off.

Chapter 15

I
jolted awake as a drip of water struck me on the nose. It was warm. I blinked at my surroundings, trying to remember where I was. Nothing looked familiar. I was in a cold concrete room lying on a rusty bench that was bolted to the wall. Was this a night terror? Then I remembered. I was in the police station. Another thought hit me.

I had
slept
. And had no horrifying nightmare! I wanted to shout for joy. Hope’s gift had helped me sleep in peace after all!

Another drop of warm water struck my forehead this time, startling me from my reverie. I reached up to wipe it off, fearing what kind of diseased water was leaking through the pipes. When my fingers touched the water, they came back slippery. Like oil. Or blood.

I jumped up, glancing at my fingertips in the filtered light from the other room. The fluid was clear. My spine tightened in sudden alarm, but I managed to maintain my composure.

It was drool. I slowly arched my head to look at the ceiling, recognizing a smell for the first time.

Sulfur.

I had a cellmate.

“No one told me I would be sharing this cell.” I muttered.

“The situation of sharing the cell is only temporary. It’s about to be vacant again shortly, manling. Don’t fret.” A feminine reptilian voice hissed back softly.

I let out a breath. “Well that’s good. I was about to call dibs on the bench.” I stared back at the Demon as she unpeeled from the ceiling like a lizard. She was naked and her body was covered in scales, but cloaked in shadows of some kind. She landed on huge, webbed talons like a dragon. But she wasn’t a dragon. She was worse. The creature unfurled from her crouch, appraising me darkly, a shadowed cape billowing around her as if alive.

“We have something to discuss.” She hissed.

“Really? Because I can think of absolutely
nothing
I want to talk to you about. I mean, literally nothing. In fact, it would be best if you just left. I was having a really raunchy dream about exorcising this scaly, ugly son of a bitch.” I hesitated, appraising my cellmate more closely. “In fact, she looked a hell of a lot like you. Isn’t that weird?” I asked, shifting my stance in order to better react to any attack. The Demon blinked at me. Then she laughed.

“Exorcise? Me? You really are as arrogant as they say.” She shook her head, wiping a jagged claw across her face as if to wipe a way a tear. “They didn’t tell me about your sense of humor!
Exorcise
! Ha!” She slapped her knees, laughing, the shadows swarming around as if alive. She was creepy, deadly, and I was scared out of my mind, but I briefly thought it would be pretty cool to have a coat that looked and acted like a shadow. I felt whispers in the corner of my mind, hypothesizing, analyzing, and mentally discarding ways to achieve just that.

It was as if I suddenly had a team of mad scientists in my brain working overtime for my subconscious. My thoughts briefly snagged on a way to possibly make a cloak of shadows and I froze for a second. “Well, shit. That wouldn’t actually be that hard. How come no one else has figured that out?” I asked myself. I was pretty sure I could make one. I had a mental image of my subconscious scientist doppelganger sorting horn-rim glasses and a comb-over as he fist bumped with a successful screech at figuring out the shadow cloak.

I hesitated, wondering again if this was another one of those dreams. The Demon was watching me as if doubting my sanity. “What in the bloody heavens are you talking about, wizard?”

I shrugged. “I dig your threads.” I said, pointing at the wavering shadows.

One of the tendrils reeled back and hissed at me in the shape of a cobra.

I jumped back in surprise. Well, maybe I hadn’t figured it
all
out yet.

“Enough. I’m here to talk of my brother. You had a horse kick him. Through a building. That wasn’t nice. He just wanted to take something from you. The Key. I’m here to accept your apology.”

She waited.

I waited.

“Well, this is awkward. What did your brother look like again? I’ve taken out quite a few Demons lately.”

She watched me. “Apologize, and I won’t strip the flesh from your bones… as slowly as I originally intended. If you give me the Key now, I’ll even grant you a clean death.”

My muscles tightened. The Key again. What was with these guys? What could they want from the Armory, and how could I give them a Key that didn’t exist? I knew I was in for a scrap, and without using magic I would simply
become
a scrap… of discarded flesh and bone. I decided to stall as I sent my mental team of mad scientists into finding a way for me to beat this Demon without magic. Which probably wasn’t likely, but worth a shot. I would no doubt have to resort to tapping into my power or become a puddle of goo for the morning janitor. At least Kosage would enjoy my ending. In my head, I knew that any solution even remotely tied to me being a Maker would no doubt require a shitload of magic, which I couldn’t afford to do, even though I wanted to see what kind of things I could actually accomplish. I silently encouraged my minions to go old school.

“What exactly do you want the Key for? I don’t think Demons would last long in the Armory.” I said honestly, remembering Hope’s disdain for Demons.

“True. But the answer will not aid you.”

“The Angels really don’t want me talking to you.”

“You’ve spoken with them?” She hissed in surprise. I nodded, hoping this would scare her off. “Ah, but the Angels can’t really
do
anything in this realm, can they? There are rules, after all.”

“Rules?” I asked, feeling slightly better… and worse. If the Angels couldn’t directly act on this plane, then I might have a chance to survive being turned into a pillar of salt. It also meant that I would be killed sooner, like, right now.

The Demon smiled at me, revealing rotted, black, razor-sharp fangs. “Angels cannot act on earth. It would ignite Armageddon. If they acted overtly, the Demons could also act overtly. Which would start World War A.” I blinked.

“World War A?”

“Yes. As in
Armageddon
.” The Demon grinned wide, lips peeling back with excitement. “Everything must be in balance. If an Angel acts discreetly, a Demon can do something discreetly. This is why we use cats paws.”

I stared at him. “You mean possessions. Summonings.” It wasn’t a question.

The Demon nodded.

“Then how do Angels act? With the Nephilim?”

The Demon flinched at the word, watching me with renewed interest. But she didn’t answer me. “Enough. I’m bored. Time to give up the Key.” I shook my head, trying to come up with a way to fight this soldier from Hell. “So be it. Say hello to your parents from me.” She smiled.

Then she moved.

I juked to the side, causing her talons to dig into the concrete for a better purchase. I grasped the bench, and with a tiny boost of magic directed at the bolts securing it to the wall, I tore it away and swung it at her head. She raised an arm to block it. It crumpled over her arm and shoulders, leaving a Demon shaped dent that she shrugged off after a moment. Then she began to laugh. I pointed at her hand patiently.

“But I broke your nail. I bet a manicure for something like that isn’t cheap. Do you use bolt-cutters or something?”

She looked down at her claw, then used her fangs to forcefully rip the talon from her finger before she spat it out onto the floor. Drops of blood dripped freely from the wound, sizzling on the concrete floor like sulfuric acid. Heh. Sulfur…

She appraised me with a cocked head. “My turn.” My mind went a million miles an hour, trying to find a way to fight her without draining my power. But there was nothing else in the room though. It was magic or death. Even with magic, it would be like…

A prison brawl.

Ah, irony.

Demons were tough. After all, I had just hit a homerun on her arm with an aluminum bench and it had only broken her nail. She darted at me, her shadow cloak darting back and forth erratically so that I couldn’t really see exactly where she was. The only way to kill a Demon was to hack them to pieces or exorcise them. Exorcising was out of the question because I had been stripped of any items that could possibly help me do so, and I didn’t dare burn away the power necessary to do it without assistance.

Then I had an idea. I waited, stock still, knowing it was reckless, but that it might be my only chance. I let her hit me, her claws latching onto my chest. Her talons began sinking into my flesh, and I Shadow Walked. Kind of.

I teleported us a few feet away, releasing the hold on my magic almost the same instant we started to shift. I heard a gasp from her snarling fangs as they lunged closer, ready to eat my face. I twisted my head back to dodge the fangs and look where we had stood only a moment ago. The bottom half of her body had been cut off as I let go of the magic, essentially slicing her neatly in half. I had gotten the idea from the tiny piece of fabric I had seen when I cold-cocked Gunnar earlier today. It had been a piece of my shirt. Luckily, I had found out about the dangers of Shadow Walking on my tee, but it had come in handy just now. I shoved off the sudden weight of her upper body, careful not to get any of her blood on me. Her claws hadn’t sunk deep, but my chest still burned as I extracted them from my torso. She blinked up at me once in disbelief. “The Key is not up for grabs. Tell your boss I said so.” Blood pooled on the floor, hissing as it scorched the concrete. I sat in the corner of the room and hugged my knees, watching the life fade from her eyes with trepidation.

I didn’t have time for this. I could always Shadow Walk out of here, and hope that it didn’t use up too much energy. But that would only freak out every cop in the building and put me on the most wanted list. And I knew the cops would have to release me tomorrow. They didn’t have any solid evidence to hold me. And I
did
need the sleep. But apparently I wasn’t safe even here if that Demon had been able to enter my cell. They were taking great risks to get the Key to the Armory.

Time.

I didn’t have any of it to waste. I needed to find a way to remove the curse from the Academy. It was going to get me killed if I was always hesitating. Maybe I could talk Gavin into releasing me. Yeah, right. The Demon’s body disintegrated into a pile of ash with a puff, but the blood remained. That was odd. I watched as it slowly ate away at the concrete, edging closer and closer to me. I doubted it would actually reach me. It was already slowing down.

My thoughts went to Indie. I hoped she was okay, and that her mother was feeling better. I knew she had to be terrified after that son of a bitch officer had answered my phone. They had conveniently forgotten to grant me a phone call yet. My thoughts drifted on to the cops and FBI. They had frozen my assets. I was essentially penniless. I had no idea how legal that was, but with someone as rich as myself, perhaps they had different rules. I could, after all, buy my way out of almost anything. Maybe they considered that a flight risk. Kind of like a weapon. Huh. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it was pretty smart on their part.

This was the second Demon to attack me in less than a day, and they had both wanted the Key. The Key that was actually my blood. They hadn’t seemed too concerned about killing me, which let me know they had no idea how valuable I was. Which was good. If they killed me, they would never be able to get into the Armory. Hoorah! Temple wins by default! That reminded me of Hope’s idle mention of answers being found through death. And I shivered.

I understood how Demons were able to interact on earth, but how did Angels sneak around? I mean, I had been directly manhandled in the bar by one of the feathery saints and his crew of Nephilim. How was that kosher? Did that mean that even now, a Demon had been granted the opportunity to act overtly? Had Eae’s assault allowed the first Demon to appear only an hour later and attack me as well? Was that why the Nephilim had been with him?